Will Child Activists Get Our Political Leaders To Lead On Climate Change?

If the adults won't act on climate change, the children will.  Fortunately they realize that we won't be around to watch species die at alarming rates, hurricanes come fast and furiously, food shortages displace and kill thousands, and cities as we know them, disappear, but they will.  Our grandchildren will face this disaster, if we don't act now.  They know it, even if our leaders don't see it as an urgent global problem.

Thanks to the leadership of 16 year old climate activist Greta Thunberg, adults and children around the world are mobilizing.  Ahead of the UNGeneral Assembly on September 23, marches were held in over 150 countries, to protest the lack of action and leadership by politicians.  250,000 people showed up in New York City to show their disgust with leaders who put their own political future and money for large corporations ahead of the good of the world.

1.1 million kids were given permission to skip school and participate in the marches.  My 10 year old grandson Lennon marched in Boulder.  I can't wait to talk to him about his experience and find out what he knows and understands about climate change.  My guess he knows more than most adults.  Children should be concerned about this issue.  In India, a country with one of the worst air quality in the world, 100,000 children are killed by air pollution every year.  That got my attention.

If none of this still concerns you, I urge you to read The Uninhabitable Earth:  Life After Warming, by David Wallace-Wells.  Just read the first 75 pages and  get the idea of what's in store for the planet.  He's got facts and figures about hurricanes, sea level, marine life, crops, melting glaciers, disappearance of whole cities (around 2100), and much more.  This is a must read if you are at all interested in saving our planet.

What this all means is that we can all do our part to have less of an imprint on the earth, but the problem is so huge and overwhelming that it must take worldwide leadership to slow down the progression.  So much has already happened that can't be undone, like 29 million birds dying in the U.S. and glaciers melting to the point where polar bears have no place to rest.  The only people that benefit from Trump's rolling back of emission restrictions or drilling for fossil fuels, or dumping toxins in our lakes and rivers, is a few businessmen.  The world is at stake, people.  We must only elect people who have a climate plan as a top priority.